Users of weapons have often found it convenient to attach accessories of various types to their weapons, particularly firearms. Such accessories include foregrips, laser sighting devices, flash lights (both navigation lights and tactical lights), and radio frequency (RF) transmitters and/or receivers. Accessory rails mounted to a weapon make it easy to attach or remove accessories. These rails usually conform to a standard such as the Picatinny or Weaver standards to ensure that accessories made by different manufacturers can attach to the same rail.
Weapon users often have multiple accessories attached to their weapon. Attaching multiple accessories can undesirably affect the size and weight of the firearm, cause excessive power consumption, render the firearm inefficient to operate and maintain, and increase the effort required for procuring, maintaining, and training on multiple systems for one weapon. As an example, the M4, which was designed to be compact and easy to handle in a variety of urban warfare situations, has become bulky and hard to handle due to the number of accessories it is paired with. This causes torque on the weapon due to large heavy accessories, snag hazards, impact hazards, and increases the risk of loose electrical wires and pressure switches.